Tuesday, December 19, 2006

BEST QUOTES OF 2006

As part of my ongoing London Bridge with OCD, I wrote down all the outrageous, inspiring, offensive, enraging, insipid, bewildering, and/or hilarious statements made in 2006.

Here are my favorites ...

"Well, you know, this, too, will pass."- Donald Rumsfeld, speaking on Rush Limbaugh's radio show in April about calls for his resignation

"You've taken me off my flight due to my taste in music? ... Where does it stop? What if I was wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt [or] odd socks, you know?"- Harraj Mann, a 23-year-old cell-phone salesman of Indian descent, who spent his cab ride to the airport blasting the Clash's "London Calling" and Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song." When the taxi driver reported these suspicious activities to the police, Mann was interrogated as a terrorist suspect for three hours.

"Bob Sherwood's seat [in Pennsylvania] would have been overwhelmingly ours, if his mistress hadn't whined about being throttled."- Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform

"Are you going to ask that question with shades on?"- President Bush to legally blind reporter Peter Wallsten

"My God is a God who wants me to have things. He wants me to bling!"- Mary J. Blige"Why did the convict have to be a black guy? It is such a stereotype. I just wish that [they] had made a more progressive choice, like a white guy who went to prison for polluting a black guy's lake."- Michael Scott (Steve Carell), on finding out there is a black ex-con working for him, on The Office

"I probably did take my newfound freedom a little too far."- Britney Spears, after being photographed in public with Paris Hilton and without underwear

"Winning isn't everything. It's just as important that we rub it in. Medal counts are a great, quantifiable way to say 'Yes, we're in an unpopular war, we're bitterly divided, and we're embroiled in scandal, but if you get all up in our bobsled grill, we'll bring the $%@# hammer down.'"- Stephen Colbert, on the Winter Olympics

"Can we got on with this? I've got to do AIDS and Alzheimer's and land mines this afternoon, and I want to get back for Deal or No Deal. Plus, Gwyneth's making drumsticks."- Coldplay's Chris Martin, waiting to do a charity spot, on Ricky Gervais' Extras"[My cat] comes to me when she wants to be fed. And after I feed her -- guess what -- she's off to wherever she wants to be in the house, until the next time she gets hungry. She's smart enough to know she can't feed herself. She's actually a very smart cat. She gets loved. She gets adoration. She gets petted. She gets fed. And she doesn't have to do anything for it, which is why I say this cat's taught me more about women, than anything my whole life."- Rush Limbaugh[My] book describes the abominable oppression and persecution in the occupied Palestinian territories, with a rigid system of required passes and strict segregation between Palestine's citizens and Jewish settlers in the West Bank. An enormous imprisonment wall is now under construction, snaking through what is left of Palestine to encompass more and more land for Israeli settlers. In many ways, this is more oppressive than what blacks lived under in South Africa during apartheid."- President Jimmy Carter, in a brave op-ed in the LA Times

Congressman Mark Foley (R-Fla.): "Do I make you a little horny?"Teen: "A little."Foley: "Cool."- from the transcript of a sexually explicit IM chat Foley had with a 16-year-old male page

"[Louisiana Gov. Kathleen] Blanco and [New Orleans Mayor Ray] Nagin do not get along at all. People died because of that."- Spike Lee, in the commentary track to the When The Levees Broke DVD

"Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me."- Senator Trent Lott

"Hip-Hop is too easy for me."- Timbaland

"You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror."- President George W. Bush, to CBS News Anchor Katie Couric

"I'd rather have your sister."- Italian soccer player Marco Materazzi, before Zinédine Zidane rammed his head into Materazzi's chest at the World Cup final

"Son of a terrorist whore!"- what forensic lip-reading “labial analysts” at the Daily Mail in London concluded that Materazzi said after scrutinizing the videotape

"You're putting words in my mouth, just the way you put artificial facts in your head."- David Letterman to Bill O'Reilly

"He found it an interesting book and a quick read. I don't want to go too deep into it, but we discussed the origins of existentialism."- White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, on President Bush reading Albert Camus' The Stranger during his summer vacation

"I'll be honest, I felt an urge to squeeze him like a kitten and that led to the gesture I made. There was nothing behind it really."- Vladimir Putin, explaining why he approached a young boy in a group of tourists, lifted his shirt, and kissed his bare stomach

"He raped 10 women. I never expected it from him. He surprised all of us. We all envy him."- Russian President Vladimir Putin, referring to rape allegations against Israeli President Moshe Kasav, during an appearance with Israeli Foreign Minister Ehud Olmert in which a microphone was inadvertently left on

"[Kevin Federline] got canned the same week as Donald Rumsfeld. History will recall K-Fed and D-Rum much the same. Both of them got in as fast as they could, but neither had a clue what to do inside. They both had a little trouble with staying power. They both spent loads of other people's money trying to hang onto a dumb idea. And neither one could dance."- Rob Sheffield, in Rolling Stone

"Please prepare yourself for masturbation because next are international singing prostitutes, Pussycat Dolls!"- Borat, introducing the Pussycat Dolls at the MTV Europe Music Awards

"I bought the $1,200 variety recently. It's great."- Martha Stewart, referring to her vibrator, called the Thumper, on the Howard Stern Show on Sirius

"Here he's at the point of death. He was dividing God's land. ... For any prime minister of Israel who decides he's going to carve it up and give it away, God says, 'No, this is mine.'"- Rev. Pat Robertson, suggesting that God was punishing Ariel Sharon (who had a stroke) for withdrawing from Gaza

"No, I don't have a gambling problem. I'm winning, and winning is not a problem. That's like saying Michael Jordan has a basketball problem, or Def Leppard has an awesomeness problem."- Earl (Jason Lee) on My Name Is Earl

"As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else. ... It's being drawn to Iraq and it's not being drawn to the U.S. You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don't want the Eye to come back here to the United States."- Senator Rick Santorum, comparing the Iraq war to the Lord of the Rings

"I'm going to sexually molest your dog."- Actress Natasha Lyonne, to Lyonne's former roommate's neighbor, according to a complaint filed by Lyonne's former roommate

"This city will be chocolate at the end of the day. ... This city will be a majority African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be."- New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin

"How do you make chocolate? You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk, and it becomes a delicious drink. That is the chocolate I am talking about."- New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, further explaining his chocolate city comment

"We still living in Katrina down here."- Juvenile, on New Orleans, months after the Hurricane hit

"I love giving the golden shower. I've done it before in the shower. It's, like, so sexy."- Ricky Martin

"I don't go hunting for celebrity babies. I have 116 other things to do, thank you, Billy. You need another job. I mean, you have potential as a human being. This may not be right for you. Seriously, can you focus on other things?"- Jeremy Piven, to Billy Bush, who asked if Piven had met Violet Affleck or Suri Cruise, on the 2006 Emmy Red Carpet Special

"The reason why I'm here is definitely to find a husband. Hopefully, the Bachelor will be that guy because, quite frankly, my eggs are rotting."- Allie G., on The Bachelor

"Naomi Campbell is being sued for abusing yet another housekeeper. In Naomi's defense, the maid had a lot of nerve walking around with her un-punched head."- David Spade, on The Showbiz Show with David Spade

"I think it would take a lot for Asian hip-hop to become popular in the States for a variety of reasons. The first and biggest reason is that Americans are incredibly parochial about the kind of hip-hop that they like; as far as a lot of American rap fans are concerned, nothing outside of our borders matters. Not even Canada. And if Canadian rappers can’t even get any love, seriously, what hope does a kid out of Seoul or Shanghai or Manila or Jakarta really have about breaking into the States?"- Oliver Wang, in an interview with APA Magazine

"I'm predicting that America will no longer be one nation but more like the Roman Empire--a conglomerate of races and cultures held together by a regime. The country I grew up in was culturally united, even if it was racially divided. We spoke the same language, had the same faith, laughed at the same comedians. We were one nationality. We're ceasing to be that when you have hundreds of thousands of people who want to retain their own culture, their own language, their own loyalty. What do we have in common that makes us fellow Americans? Is it simply citizenship? Or is it blood, soil, history and heroes?"- Pat Buchanan, detailing his views on the harms of multiculturalism

"I learned this from a college graduate. She'd smoke a joint the night before a test, while she was studying, and then again in the morning and everything she had read would come right back. I tried this shit five times and I swear to God, I've never made less than a 92."- Lil Wayne, a University of Houston student, giving advice on cramming for an exam

"Occasionally. One of the things I've used on the Google is to pull up maps. It's very interesting to see -- I've forgot the name of the program -- but you get the satellite, and you can -- like, I kinda like to look at the ranch. It reminds me of where I wanna be sometimes."- President George W. Bush, on being asked whether he uses Google, in an interview with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo

"Nobody appreciates their girlfriend until they get herpes from the next one."- Johnny Drama (Kevin Dillon) on Entourage

"These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by griefparrazies. I have never seen people enjoying their husband's death so much."- Ann Coulter, on the women whose husbands died on 9-11

"[W]hat I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.' ... I'm not accusing you of being an enemy, but that's the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way."- CNN Headline News anchor Glenn Beck to Congressman Keith Ellison, the first Muslim ever elected to Congress

"I dealt with people like this for 20 years. They will get up every day. They will kill somebody and go have some chicken at KFC. You will catch them eating chicken and drinking a beer after they just murdered three people. Sean, these people are out there. They're all over the place."- Former LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman, on Hannity & Colmes"Trust me, Bart ... It's better to walk in on both your parents than on just one of them."- Milhouse to Bart, after Bart saw Homer and Marge getting busy, on The Simpsons"I love inside jokes. I'd love to be part of one someday."- Michael Scott (Steve Carell) on The Office"We support your war of terror! ... May George Bush drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq!"- Borat, before a cheering rodeo audience